


When I'm Here No Longer

by corruptedkid



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 06:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8654251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corruptedkid/pseuds/corruptedkid
Summary: "If you promise not to cry, then I'll tell you just what I would say..."





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [Grace Jeanette's cover of The Light Behind Your Eyes.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJmhsHFl-VA) If you haven't watched it, do so now, and cry your emo little heart out.
> 
> For real though that cover gets to me because the song fits the story of the killjoys to a fucking T. It's like Party Poison is singing to the Girl after they all die, but when _she_ sings it, it feels like she's reminiscing about them, telling them it's okay, they didn't let her down or anything, y'know?
> 
> man its just sad so i wrote about it

The Girl shrieked with excitement, reaching out for the gun in Fun Ghoul’s arms, which was, quite frankly, fucking enormous. “Where’d you _get_ that? Gimme, gimme!” 

Ghoul responded by holding it over his head, far out of her reach. “What’s the magic word?” he said, smirking.

“Please! Please! Can I try it? I wanna blow up a boulder like Poison did last week, that was so _awesome--”_

Jet Star snatched the gun from Ghoul. “Are you crazy? She’s not using this! Wait ‘til she’s a teenager, for fuck’s sake, she’s barely nine. Where’d you get it, anyway?” He inspected it carefully, holding it up higher as Ghoul tried in vain to steal it back. “This isn’t bad. Only a couple years old, I think, it’s in good shape. I could fix it up, on the condition that you never let her get her paws on it.”

“Aw, c’mon, let the kid have a little fun.”

“Yeah!” the Girl said defiantly. “I know how to shoot, what’s the big deal?”

Jet rolled his eyes. “You know how to fire a zap. This is way different. I bet the recoil would knock you right over.” He nudged her in demonstration, smiling as she held her ground. “Someday, motorbaby, just not today.”

“What are we arguing about?” Poison yelled from the next room.

“Whether or not the Girl gets to shoot a gun bigger than she is,” Jet called back.

“Oh.” There was a pause. “Well, how much bigger? ‘Cause if it’s, like--”

“ _No,_ Poison.”

“You sayin’ size doesn’t matter, Jet?” Ghoul sniggered.

Jet sighed, hoisting the gun over his shoulder. “Whatever, goodbye.” He headed towards the door. 

“Wait, wait, don’t go! You can fix it up, I won’t let her touch it.”

“Not fair!” the Girl protested. Ghoul ruffled her hair as she pouted.

“It won’t be too long now, kid. I’ll teach you how to shoot better than any zone rat out there, I promise.”

“You promise?”

Ghoul wrapped one arm around her shoulder, and the glare she was trying for was interrupted by a small smile. “I promise,” he said. “You’re gonna be a terror.”

“We can be terrors together!” Her nose crinkled into a grin. On the outside, she was the cutest little kid you could imagine, all dusty freckles and baby teeth. On the inside, though, she was something a little less innocent. There was no sugar or spice in her heart, just gunsmoke and exhaust fumes. She was a fun-sized warrior in boots two sizes too big. Her tiny fingers could pull a trigger, but she couldn’t defuse a bomb, not like Ghoul, and she couldn’t fell a draculoid with a single punch, not like Kobra. She was strong, but time wasn’t on her side. She just wasn’t old enough.

She still needed protection.

“We’ll be terrors together, right?” she prompted.

“Yeah,” said Ghoul, twirling a finger through the ringlets of dirty blonde hair that fell across her forehead. “Together."

***

“I swear, you leave her behind on one raid,” Poison muttered. “If this is what she’s like at ten, her teen years are gonna be hell.”

“She’s just frustrated,” said Kobra, glancing at the Trans Am. The Girl’s poofy hair was barely visible in the back seat, where she sat curled into an angry ball. “I mean, she probably gets worried about us.”

“She shouldn’t,” Poison said. “We’ve never given her reason to. We go out, we kill dracs, we come back and throw a party. No big deal.”

“That might actually be the problem,” said Jet Star. “I don’t think she understands how dangerous it is. No offense, Poison, but you don’t take things very seriously. She doesn’t understand why we have to leave her behind sometimes.”

“So what if I’m not so serious? I’d blow up if I went around worrying all the time. I just do what I’ve got to, and that means I don’t stress out over every near-death experience.”

“I know that, but she doesn’t. You’re her role model. We all are. She probably just wants to feel like part of the team,” Jet reasoned.

“So, what are we supposed to do?” asked Ghoul. “Take her with us?”

Jet shrugged. “Maybe once or twice. Just enough that she feels connected, but she also gets a scope of how bad things can actually get. I mean, there’s no need to take her out every single time, we still have to protect her; but she should also start learning how things work. She’s old enough now.”

“Does that mean I can finally break out the grenades?” said Ghoul, grinning. Jet rolled his eyes.

“She’s not _that_ old.”

“Aw, man.”

***

“Yeah!” the Girl hollered. “Eat _that,_ you black and white son of a--”

“Duck!” Poison shouted. The Girl dropped to the ground, and a blast of energy shot over her head to connect with a draculoid’s chest. Once she glanced over her shoulder and confirmed that it was incapacitated, she scrambled back to her feet, swinging her gun in search of a new target.

Her face lit up as her eyes landed on a stray drac.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Ghoul smirked. “That one’s mine.” He shoved her aside and fired, the drac tumbling to the ground.

“Not fair,” the Girl said crossly.

“Oh, relax. There’s plenty more for you.” He pointed to a drac running towards them. “Bet you can’t get it between the eyes.”

“You’re on!” The Girl planted her feet and fired, her shot hitting the drac straight in the neck. She swore, then glanced hesitantly up at Ghoul. “That was close enough, right?” 

“Perfectly close,” Ghoul agreed. “Next time-- wait, hold on.” He ducked around her, stopping a scarecrow in its tracks with a single shot. “Anyway, next time aim a little higher.”

“I know! Where’s another one?” The Girl glanced around, then spun in a circle, her face falling. “Aww, it’s over already?”

Jet Star popped up from behind the Trans Am, grinning. “Don’t act so surprised. We _are_ pretty good at fighting, and there weren’t too many of them, anyway.”

“Can we do it again?”

“Nah,” said Poison, turning over a fallen drac with his boot. “My gun’s almost outta juice. Wanna head back to the diner?”

“Aww,” she whined. “But I wanna shoot more! I haven’t had target practice this good in ages, come _onnn._ ”

“I’ll open the sunroof while we’re driving and you can stick your head out,” Poison offered. 

She brightened instantly. “Okay, that works too.” She skipped over to the Trans Am, hopping into the back seat. “Let’s go!”

“Kids,” Jet said fondly. “So easily persuaded.”

“She won’t be a kid much longer,” Ghoul said sadly. “Pity. The buck teeth match her gun so well.”

***

The Girl had seen Party Poison cry before. Sometimes things would get to be too much, and after he thought she was asleep, she would see him pacing the diner, his face buried in his hands. Sometimes he and Ghoul would scream at each other and Ghoul would storm off to who-knows-where, and Poison would act like he wasn’t hurt by it, but he definitely was. Sometimes he’d have nightmares, and the Girl would hear him struggling for breath before he drifted back off to sleep.

She’d seen him hurt so many times, but never like this.

Not ever like this.

Kobra and Jet had promised they wouldn’t be long. It was just an errand; they’d head off down Route Guano, retrieve supplies, and be back before sundown. The Girl hadn’t thought anything of it. It wasn’t like they couldn’t take care of themselves. She’d see them in the evening, and then Kobra could teach her how to play poker like he’d said he would. She knew they’d come back.

They didn’t come back.

They didn’t come back, and Poison hadn’t said a word since he broke down, clinging to Ghoul’s jacket and sobbing and saying it was his fault, all his fault, even though it couldn’t have been. He wouldn’t even talk to the Girl. He would just stare into space as if he couldn’t see her.

She could tell Ghoul was hurting too. He was trying to be strong for her, though; he knew that if he fell apart, they all would. When she ran to him, he’d hold her tight and tell her everything was going to be okay, and she could almost believe it. 

“I thought we’d always be safe,” the Girl whispered, her voice thick with emotion.

Ghoul squeezed her shoulder. “I think we all did.”

***

There were no words to describe how the Girl felt when Kobra and Jet reappeared. Relieved, ecstatic, shocked… no adjective could come close. Poison tried to put it to words, cussing them out for a solid two minutes before breaking down and hugging them, choking out something that sounded like “thought you were _dead,_ motherfuckers.”

“We all thought you were ghosted,” Ghoul said, punching Kobra in the arm. “Dr. D announced it and everything. What the fuck happened?”

“Ambush,” Kobra said simply. “You got any bandages handy? ‘Cause Jet Star’s foot got a little fucked up, and I’m pretty sure I’m still bleeding.”

“Shit. Yeah, we’ve got some. How bad was it?” Ghoul poked Kobra’s jacket open, then gasped. “ _Shit._ Bandages, right, be right back.”

He dashed off to the next room, leaving Kobra standing directly before the Girl.

For a moment, they just looked at each other.

Then the Girl ran forward, pulling him and Jet Star into a hug. “I missed you,” she said. It would be impossible to translate the intensity of her relief into those three simple words, but she thought the message got across, judging by how Jet refused to let her go.

“We missed you too, motorbaby. We missed you too.”

***

The Girl didn’t know what stars looked like. The others did, but they were older. They remembered what it had been like before the skies filled with pollution, blocking out the pinpricks of light from outer space. They knew what it was like to sit out on a clear night and watch the universe turn. The Girl didn’t. She had only ever seen satellites, blinking out messages she was never meant to understand. 

“Stupid satellites,” she said out loud. The words were followed by a sharp cough. Smoke sputtered from her mouth out into the night air. This wasn’t the first time she’d snuck one of Ghoul’s cigarettes, but she still didn’t enjoy it. She only did it because she could, and some part of her teenage brain thought _fuck it._ Why just rebel against BLi when she could fight the whole world?

Her legs dangled from the edge of the roof. If it was light outside, they’d cast shadows down on the ground below, but it was too dark for shadows. The darkness was a cloak around her, concealing her from view. It was good at keeping secrets.

“You really shouldn’t smoke, you know,” said a voice from behind her.

The Girl jumped, nearly slipping off the edge of the roof. “Jesus! Do you want me to fall?”

Poison laughed. He was just a silhouette in the dark, a disembodied voice that came and sat down next to her. “It’s your own fault, stupid. Shouldn’t be sitting there.”

“You do it all the time,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, but I also smoke, so... I’m a dumbass. You shouldn’t try to emulate me.”

“I’m not emulating anybody,” she huffed. She ground the cigarette out on the roof. “I’m just… relaxing. By myself. With nobody here.”

“You gotta work on your subtlety.”

“You’ve gotta work on your manners.”

“All right, point taken.” Poison nudged her. “So. You doin’ okay?”

She raised en eyebrow, then remembered he wouldn’t be able to see it. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

Poison was quiet for a moment. “Just thinking. Do you remember the time Kobra and Jet disappeared?”

“I can’t ever forget.” The Girl shivered. Those days had been some of the bleakest of her life. “Why do you ask?”

Poison didn’t answer her. When he finally spoke, he sounded unusually tired. “We worry about you a lot, you know. Not as much as when you were younger, but still. I’m always treading the line, like, should we try and prepare you for everything, or should we try and shelter you, protect you?”

“I prefer being prepared,” she said. 

“Yeah, but it’s hard. Being prepared can hurt. Like, would you want to tell an eight-year-old there’s a chance she could die any minute? I don’t think so.”

It was the Girl’s turn to go quiet. “I guess not. Why are you telling me this?”

“‘Cause. I’ve been worrying, and it’s late, and nighttime fucks with my head.”

“Did you have a nightmare?”

She felt Poison startle. “Wha-- no, I… Uh. Yeah,” he admitted. “How’d you guess?”

“‘Cause you have ‘em all the time. I’m not stupid, I hear you.”

“Shit. I always think you’re asleep.”

“I don’t sleep much. Not anymore.” The Girl bit her lip. “I’ve started having dreams, too. Mostly about… y’know. The time with Jet and Kobra.”

Poison sighed. She heard his jacket rustle as he leaned forward, rubbing his eyes. “Fuck. That doesn’t make it any easier to say this.”

“To say what?”

If the sun came out at that moment, the Girl knew she would see Poison looking at her with sadness clouding his gaze. He scooted back from the edge of the roof, dragging her with him. He wrapped one arm around her shoulder. “We aren’t going to be here forever,” he said quietly.

“I know that.” 

“I just… It could happen at any moment. We could get ambushed, or I could get shot, or, like, anything. We try so hard to control our lives out here, but we still can’t control how we die.”

The Girl leaned into him. “Don’t think like that,” she whispered. “You can still die like a hero. We’ve got that much control, and that’s what matters.”

Poison exhaled slowly. “I know, kid. But you might miss out on the little things. Goodbyes. That type of stuff. I hate knowing that when the end comes, I probably won’t have said goodbye to you first.”

“Then don’t think about it,” said the Girl. 

“But I have to. I just… I want you to know how important you are, okay? To all of us. In case we never get the chance to say it right. You’re our little sand pup, and you always will be, no matter how hard you try to act grown up. We love you to death. You know that, right?”

“Of course I do.” She wound one arm around Poison, holding him tightly in the darkness. “I love you, too.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Promise me that you’ll keep going after we’re gone.”

“Poison, don’t. That’s morbid.”

“It’s not morbid, it’s just realistic.” Poison laughed quietly. “Okay, maybe it _is_ a little morbid, but that’s just the facts of our reality. Can you promise me, please? I don’t like to think about you falling to pieces without us. Promise you’ll be stronger when we’re gone.”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I hate thinking about it. Don’t make me.”

“We’ll always be with you,” he whispered back. “Just maybe not in the conventional way.”

“You mean the living way?”

“Yeah.”

She snorted. “You’re pulling that ‘he’s with us in our hearts’ crap on me, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I kind of am. But it’s not all crap. You’ve gotta believe in that stuff if you don’t wanna go crazy, you know? It gives you something to fight for,” Poison said softly. “Just… If I could stay here forever, I would. I’d sing you to sleep every night and fight off every bad dream, God, you know I would. But I can’t.”

The Girl was glad it was dark outside. She didn’t like it when people saw her cry.

“Aw, motorbaby, shh, it’s okay.” Poison stroked her hair. “I’m not gone yet.”

“Fuck you,” she sniffled. “I told you I didn’t want to think about it.”

“Shh.” Poison hugged her tightly, keeping one hand buried in her poofy hair. “You’re gonna be fine. Just stay strong for me, okay? You can do it. I know you can.” He pulled away, cupping her cheeks in his hands. “Hey. Look at me.”

“I am looking at you, it’s just dark,” she said pitifully. His thumb brushed the corner of her eye, wiping away the tears that had gathered there.

“Good. Now, I need you to make me a promise. Even when it’s dark, you need to keep hope,” he said fiercely. “Never let them take the light behind your eyes. Never ever.”

“I won’t,” the Girl murmured. 

“Good. And don’t cry, either, you’re breaking my poor little heart.” 

Poison pulled her back in, and they stayed that way for a long time; wrapped in each other’s arms, with the satellites as their only witness.

***

The Girl never should have made that fucking promise. She never knew, she never could have fucking _imagined_ how bad it would be. It was over too quickly. They were fighting, then _bam_ , Poison was up against the wall, then _bam_ , he was dead. Kobra was dead. Ghoul was dead. Even Jet Star was fucking dead, and she didn’t know what to do without them, because they were all she had ever known and they were her fucking _family._

And it was all her fault.

***

The Girl tried running with a crew, once. It didn’t work out. They were a nice bunch, and certainly sympathetic, but sympathy wasn’t what she needed. She needed people to stop looking at her like she was some type of martyr. She needed to forget. She was no hero, no messiah; she was just a scared little girl who had lost her family. Why couldn’t anyone see that?

In the end, she became something of a lone wolf. She wandered the zones by herself, raiding camps for supplies and bartering anything else she needed. She knew how to take care of herself. The fabulous four had taught her well, but she was outgrowing their legacy, learning a few new tricks. She wasn’t just a part of their story anymore. She was writing her own.

But she didn’t like this story nearly as much.

***

Grief was a force that defied description. It twisted the mind, plunging it through despair, rage, helplessness, and then the guilty twinge that came with acceptance. It was a fucked up process. Most killjoys chose not to go through it, instead bottling their emotions and letting them loose in violent storms of vengeance. The Girl would be lying if she said she wasn’t tempted by the prospect. But she simply didn’t know how. The moral lessons she had learned as a child were rooted too deeply, and she knew that no matter what happened to her, she could never kill without reason.

Her grief was powerful enough without adding a murderer’s guilt to the mix. 

After all, the only people who chose to shove away grief were those who were beyond saving. They were no longer capable of love. It had hurt them too badly, so they taught themselves not to feel it.

It was _such_ a tempting concept.

But to forsake love would be to forsake her family, and that was something the Girl couldn’t do. 

She would just have to be stronger.

***

“This probably isn’t what you would have wanted.”

The Girl sat in the dust, tracing patterns into it with one finger.

“But, fuck it, you were never perfect. What was it you told me? That I shouldn’t emulate you?”

She brushed a clump of sand from the tiny cross sticking out of the ground.

“I’m done emulating. I’m working things out for myself. It’s not healthy, exactly, but I think it’s working. I’m trying to be stronger, like you said. I can’t afford to fall to pieces out here. Most of the time I try not to think about what happened, but every once in a while… Well. Every once in a while, I come here.”

She sighed. 

“I miss you. I really fucking miss you. That’s something I can’t run from. I tried. I tried hiding away, but it just didn’t work. You taught me too well.” She managed a weak smile. “I almost gave up, but I didn’t. I kept my promise. Didn’t let them take the light.” She scooted closer to the cross, laughing quietly. “Can’t promise not to cry, though. I do have my limits.” Sure enough, her eyes were already beginning to burn. She would have to get this over with before she became a total mess.

“Fun Ghoul,” she said quickly, wiping her eyes. “Looking back, you were a total asshole. But you were also super funny, and you let me do stuff you really shouldn’t have, and I loved you for it.” She kissed her fingertips, then placed them on the cross.

“Jet Star. You tried so hard to be the mom I never had, but you were perfect just the way you were. All protective and shit. I didn’t really need it, and I didn’t appreciate it enough at the time, but I do now. Love you.” She repeated her previous action.

“Kobra Kid, I… You understood me in ways the others didn’t. Thank you. I know you weren’t much for deep talks, but you were such an important part of our family. Also, thanks for the poker lessons. I’m not quite as good as you were, but I won five cans of power pup the other day, so that’s something.” She had to wipe her eyes again.

“And Party Poison. You were just one big mess, huh? You and Ghoul. But you always put me above your own issues, which must have been super hard. And you actually talked to me about stuff instead of just acting like I couldn’t hear you. Thanks for that. I… I probably wouldn’t be able to do this right now if you hadn’t talked to me that one time. I didn’t want to think about death then, and I still don’t, but I needed to. You were right. We never really did get to say goodbye. But ‘cause of you, I knew what you guys would say if you got the chance, and…” She swallowed a sob. “And that’s something valuable, y’know? It gave me something to fight for. It feels stupid saying it, but you’re still with me in my heart, and yeah, you’d be laughing at me for that, so fuck you.” She kissed her fingers one last time and touched them to the cross.

“Love you to death,” she said quietly.

Then she stood up, drawing a quick breath and scrubbing her eyes clean. That was enough grief for one day. Now, she would let it grow dull, until the next time it required her attention. She never forgot the killjoys. That would be disrespecting their memory. She just let the pain fade into the background. It would spike up every now and again, prompting a visit to her makeshift grave, but for the most part, she kept it under control.

The Girl was moving on. 

She turned her back on the grave, staring out across the sun-beaten desert.

“Never let them take the light behind your eyes,” she whispered to herself. 

She never had, and she never would. She wasn’t one to break promises.


End file.
